COMPGA18 - Cryptanalysis

This database contains 2016-17 versions of the syllabuses. For current versions please see here.

Code

COMPGA18 (Also taught as COMPM068)

Year

MSc

Prerequisites

Introduction to Cryptography COMPGA03

Term

2

Taught By

Nicolas Courtois and Christophe Petit

Aims

Study of major topics in cryptanalysis. Showing a variety of ways to break, fix/repair and to measure/evaluate the security of cryptographic primitives. Understanding the maths, the security design principles, the internal structure and important properties of major cryptosystems. Study of major computational hard problems in cryptography (symmetric and public key). Step by step analysis of mathematical/algebraic/statistical attacks, methods and algorithms in cryptanalysis.

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and understanding of how current cryptographic security technologies are built with individual components and their interaction, how they are (sometimes) defeated and how they can be designed or enhanced to be more robust. Understanding security goals, attacks and defences and other requirements in cryptographic systems.Understanding different types of attacks (e.g. key recovery vs. decryption). Learning how to evaluate the practical feasibility of attacks in terms of time, memory, pre-computation, data and the protocol / context in which they can be executed.

Understanding the role of keyed operations, non-linearity, randomness, one-wayness, diffusion, side-channel vulnerabilities, permutations, security reductions, etc in the design of cryptographic protections. Discovering with software of key properties which are relevant to their security. Learning how to use standard crypto libraries, computer algebra software and software cryptanalysis tools. Learning how cryptosystems fail (theory/practice).